These six organizations secretly run the Internet

Who runs the Internet? Is it Google, the global search leader that trades fantastic free services for borderline frightening insights into user behavior? Is it Apple, whose iPhones and iPads are reportedly used to connect people to the Internet more than any other mobile devices on the planet by a massive margin? Is it the Illuminati? According to a new feature from the team that taught us how to disappear online, there are actually six organizations that secretly run the Internet and you might not have considered any of them.

“When it comes to the Internet, conspiracy theories abound,” WhoIsHostingThis.com wrote in a post on its blog. “Some are decidedly tongue-in-cheek (such as Google’s impending creation of a SkyNet-style robot dictatorship), while others, such as the enduring and omnipresent threat of Illuminati control, are taken very seriously (at least by those who believe in them).”

The post continued, “Of course, it’s not just the threat a new world order or the potential for a robot apocalypse that capture the minds and imaginations of folks on the World Wide Web. Beyond their reputation as innovators and purchasers of potentially unsettling robotic technologies, Google is regarded by many people as the de facto owner and primary operator of the Internet itself. And with good reason—the search engine is used by more than 60% of Internet-connected devices every day, and accounts for more than a quarter of all Internet traffic. But the truth is, even an entity as large as Google isn’t quite sufficient to run the whole of the Internet.”

The group has created a simple infographic that details each of the six organizations it says secretly control the Web. Among them are the International Telecommunication Union, The Internet Society, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and everyone’s favorite, Internet service providers (ISPs).